Iconostasis

(Gr. eikonostasion, eidonostasis, picture screen, from eikon, image, picture, and
histemi, place), the chief and most distinctive feature in all Greek churches, whether
Catholic or Orthodox. It may be said to differentiate the Greek church completely from the
Roman in its interior arrangement. It consists of a great screen or partition running from
side to side of the apse or across the entire end of the church, which divides the
sanctuary from the body of the church, and is built of solid materials such as stone,
metal, or wood, and which reaches often (as in Russia) to the very ceiling of the church,
thus completely shutting off the altar and the sanctuary from the worshipper. It has three
doors: the great royal door in the middle (so called because it leads directly to the
altar upon which the King of kings is sacrificed), the deacon's door to the right, and the
door of the proskomide (preparation for Liturgy) upon the left, when viewing the structure
from the standpoint of a worshipper in the body of the church.

Two pictures or icons must appear upon every iconostasis, no matter how humble, in the
Greek church; the picture of Our Lord on the right of the Royal door, and that of Our lady
upon the left. But in the finer churches of Russia, Greece, Turkey, and the East the
iconostasis has a wealth of paintings lavished upon it. Besides the two absolutely
necessary pictures, the whole screen is covered with them. On the royal door there is
always the Annunciation and often the four Evangelists. On each of the other doors there
are St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Beyond the deacon's door there is usually the saint to
whom the church is dedicated, while at the opposite end there is either St. Nicholas of
Myra or St. John the Baptist. Directly above the royal door is a picture of the Last
Supper, and above that is often a large picture (deisus) of Our Lord sitting crowned upon
a throne, clothed in priestly raiment, as King and High-priest. At the very top of the
iconostasis is a large cross (often a crucifix in bas-relief), the source of our
salvation, and on either side of it are the pictures of Our Lady and of St. John.

Where the iconostasis is very lofty, as among the Slavonic nationalities, whether
Orthodox or Catholic, the pictures upon it are arranged in tiers or rows across its entire
length. Those on the lower ground tier have already been described; the first tier above
that is a row of pictures commemorating the chief feasts of the Church, such as the
Nativity, Annunciation, Transfiguration, etc.; above them a tier containing the Prophets
of the Old Law; and lastly the very top of the iconostasis. These pictures are usually
painted in the stiff Byzantine manner, although in many Russian churches they have begun
to use modern art; the Temple of the Savior in Moscow is a notable example. The
iconostasis in the Greek (Hellenic) churches have never been so lofty and as full of
paintings as those in Russian and other countries. A curious form of adornment of the
icons or pictures has grown up in Russia and is also found in other parts of the East.
Since the Orthodox Church would not admit sculptured figures on the inside of churches
(although they often have numerous statues upon the outside) they imitated an effect of
sculpture in the pictures placed upon the iconostasis which produces an incongruous effect
upon the Western mind. The icon, which is generally painted upon wood, is covered except
as to the face and hands with a relief of silver, gold, or seed pearls showing all the
details and curves of the drapery, clothing and halo: thus giving a crude cameo-like
effect around the flat painted face and hands of the icon.

The iconostasis is really an Oriental development in adorning the holy place about the
Christian altar. Originally the altar stood out plain and severe in both the Oriental and
Latin Rites. But in the Western European churches and cathedrals the Gothic church
builders put a magnificent wall, the reredos, immediately behind the altar and heaped
ornamentation, figures, and carvings upon it until it became resplendent with beauty. In
the East, however, the Greeks turned their attention to the barrier or partition dividing
the altar and sanctuary from the rest of the church and commenced to adorn and beautify
that, and thus gradually made it higher and covered it with pictures of the Apostles,
Prophets, and saints. Thus the Greek Church put its ornamentation of the holy place in
front of the altar instead of behind it as in the Latin churches. In its present form in
the churches of the Byzantine (and also the Coptic) Rite the iconostasis comparatively
modern, not older than the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. It was never used in the
Roman churches or any of the Latin churches of the West, and was unknown to the early
Church. The modern chancel rail of the Latin Rite correctly represents the primitive
barrier separating the altar from the people. In the great Gothic cathedrals the choir
screen or rood screen may be said in a way to be the analogue of the iconostasis, but that
is the nearest approach to it in the Western Church. None of the historians or liturgical
writers of the early or middle Greek Church ever mention the iconostasis. Indeed the name
today is chiefly in Russian usage, for the meaning of the Greek work is not restricted
merely to the altar screen, but is applied to any object supporting a picture. The word is
first mentioned in Russian annals in 1528 when one was built by Macarius, Metropolitan of
Novgorod.

In the early Greek churches there was a slight barrier about waist high, or even lower,
dividing the altar from the people. This was variously known as kigklis, grating,
dryphakta, fence, diastyla, a barrier made of columns, according to the manner in which it
was constructed. Very often pictures of the saints were affixed to the tops of the
columns. When Justinian constructed the "great" church, St. Sophia, in
Constantinople, he adorned it with twelve high columns (in memory of the twelve Apostles)
in order to make the barrier or chancel, and over the tops of these columns he placed an
architrave which ran the entire width of the sanctuary. On this architrave or crossbeam
large disks or shields were placed containing the pictures of the saints, and this
arrangement was called templon (templum), either from its fancied resemblance to the front
of the old temples or as expressing the Christian idea of the shrine where God was
worshipped. Every church of the Byzantine Rite eventually imitated the "great"
church and so this open templon form of iconostasis began to be adopted among the churches
of the East, and the name itself was used to designate what is now the iconostasis.

Many centuries elapsed before there was any approach towards making the solid partition
which we find in the Greek churches of today. But gradually the demand for greater
adornment grew, and to satisfy it pictures were placed over the entire iconostasis, and so
it began to assume somewhat the present form. After the Council of Florence (1438) when
the last conciliar attempt at reunion of the Churches failed, the Greek clergy took great
pleasure in building and adorning their church as little like the Latin ones as possible,
and from then on the iconostasis assumed the form of the wall-like barrier which it has at
present. As its present form is merely a matter of development of Church architecture
suitable and adapted to the Greek Rite, the iconostasis was continuously used by the
Catholics as well as by the Orthodox.

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